It’s true that California is no stranger to smartphone stupidity, but a new law they’re trying to pass would take the cake. It would require every tablet and phone in the state of California to come with a hard-coded “kill switch” so that when your phone is stolen, you just kill it and buy a new one. Yes, they would rather you buy a new phone than pay police to do their jobs.

The logic behind this, such as it is, is that if you can lock up your phone from a distance, they will be less valuable to thieves. You know, because criminals are possessed of such incredible foresight, hence their chosen career.

The wireless carriers, in particular, rejected the idea, leading to some criticism from regulators. Schneiderman said he sent a letter to the heads of the five largest carriers in the US.
Instead, regulators are hoping to get around the resistance by passing a bill mandating the change. The bill has the support of officials from San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Oakland.

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If the law passes, which is thankfully not a sure thing, then essentially it would put this kill switch onto every single phone sold in the US. California is an enormous market and there’s simply too much money involved in making a California phone and a smartphone for everyone else.

As we broke down before, this is a bad law because it shifts the burden of stopping theft off of the people we pay to actually do it and onto the consumer, and it creates enormous security vulnerabilities while opening a new frontier in oppressing civil rights. There’s no provision in this law that requires anybody to buy the consumer a new phone. Basically, this law boils down to “Finding your phone is hard. We don’t wanna. Just buy a new one.”

On the other hand, we’re sure your wireless carrier will be enormously excited to talk about the new, $20 a month insurance plans they’re likely putting in place if this law passes. So hey, everybody wins! Except us!

I’m not sure I understand the opposition to this. Even if the police did their jobs perfectly, what are the odds that you are going to get your stolen phone back? I’d guess pretty close to zero, considering the amount of higher priority issues they’ve got to deal with. If my phone is stolen, I think I’d like the ability to remotely brick the thing and screw the asshole who stole it (Not literally, but then, well, maybe. Depends). Anyway, I’d like to hear from somebody who really hates this idea as to why it’s bad.

Martin summed it up pretty well, but there’s also the fact that there are plenty of solutions to allow you to do this that are already on the market. The consumer can already choose to do this: Why force everyone to if they don’t want it? Why should I be exposed to a crippling security vulnerability because some precious snowflake is too stupid to put their phone in their pocket in NYC?

Typical politics. Adding more government and regulation that we don’t need. Let the market dictate which phones have a kill switch or not. Also whenever new technology comes out to help with security, there’s always a hacker that comes up with a way around it.